The Best Of

Re-cut from scratch, freshly printed parts - see attached new price for this. Finally now back!!

Are Run-DMC the most important group of the past 25 years? Well, if you believe that hip-hop is the most significant musical development in a quarter century, what other conclusion can you draw? Though they may not have been responsible for the birth of rap, the trio from Hollis in Queens represents the genre's coming of age. They were the ones who brought what was largely a regional street phenomenon to the masses. The rhymes, the beats, the style, the attitude--Run-DMC introduced it all to the world. Focusing mostly on the group's first three albums - each of them a cornerstone of rap music - this 23-track super collection is a reminder of a time when rap enjoyed a kind of childlike innocence: their boasts are forceful but not angry; the beats are simple but exciting; the overall effect (fuelled by heavy-metal riffs) is edgy and aggressive, but not violent or destructive.

But most of all, it's fun. In the 1990s, rap artists would take Run-DMC's ideas to wide extremes, but the roots of this next generation--gangsta rap's street realism, political rap's social agendas, rock-rap's antagonism--are found right here. Run-DMC--like almost all pioneers from Elvis to Louis Armstrong--suffered a period of irrelevancy when they were looked upon as quaint or outdated, but their time will and did come. Rest assured, this is not 80s retro kitsch. The are hip hop through and through. So not only have we bought you their best tracks to date, but we've also added 13 hard to find very rare bonus tracks for your listening pleasure! Tracks that have been lost in the archives, or were only pressed on vinyl once upon a time.... now back with a vengence